Them corrupt immigrants are stinking the place up real bad, huh?
My great grandad was an immigrant. So is my wife.
So were the family of everyone here at some point.
Maybe you should take that over to the Aryan site.

My mother was an immigrant, a LEGAL immigrant.
Losing an argument? just cry RACIST!

"As we let these third world types into our country they are bringing this corruption with them..."
Were we having an argument about something when you made this statement?
Most of my friends are "these third world types" you are characterizing as corrupt. Among them are the finest people I have ever known.

Bard--no, I think that government in the United States is one of the least corrupt in the world. I think that a minority of people do crimes--I think that the percentage of priests abusing minors is about 4%. You find that abuse in other churches than the Catholic Church, and in the teaching profession. I cannot understand it--but I think it is rare. I know many of the local government officials in the Bay area, and have worked with many officials over the past 30 years. Most of them--over 75%--are motivated by public service, not by money, and I can count those I suspected of being truly corrupt on one hand. That is very hard for some people--who are motivated by money and status in business--to comprehend.

People in general have a tendency towards greed and laziness. Take for example the Chevron refinery in Richmond, which enjoyed the cuts in oversight by CALOSHA from State budget cuts that resulted from Republican policies. So Chevron ignored their own policies, and violated their own safety rules, failed to replace a corroding pipe which they noted in 2002, failed to heed their own safety rules and left the refinery running and pumping high pressure hot oil through the leaking pipe. They are lucky--no care was involved--that they didn't kill some of their staff.

Some businesses, and some government officials, will do bad things. You need to set up systems that will provide oversight of both. I know--I helped put a crooked appointed official in jail. It takes courage to blow the whistle.

The most corrupt folks I know in the thirld world are First Worlders.
The Mayor made $150 month. I have known him from childhood. He was an honest weak minded man. When he was in financial trouble some expats began offering bribes to him to see if they could make him into a corrupt person like they are. They still brag to me about it.
I begged them to lay off the poor guy but they succeeded in making him as corrupt as the worst Americans there.
When you talked about seeing corruption in the third world, who do you think is handing those envelopes out? Dirt poor locals?
The same guys don't get the chance to buy cops and pols in America, but they would if they could.
Opportunities for corruption bring out the worst in people of all nations.

The patronizing view that these are dumb locals corrupted by sharp, unscrupulous "first world" interlopers is absurd. Africans are smart people. The "big men" that rise to the top are hard, ruthless men who do not need Americans to teach them about corruption. It is endemic in every one of these countries and in many others.

My attempt at discussion has turned a bit south, but wouldn't it be interesting to cut the size of our govt in half, but get many of the important issues solved?

It has become a money grubbing, crony capitalistic, Mao Jones Industrials, oligarchy. How can anyone argue this? They print money that is a tax on every American. They give contracts to their future donors. Solyndra, Fiskar, Volt boondoggles. They virtually ban long guns in Ct. but do nothing about handguns?

This is like living in Alice and Wonderland.....Ban large sodas, but give the morning after pill to 12 year olds without parental consent.

These are some real bastards without a doubt. They are not, however, the usual people you see in the third world.
Perhaps they are, to Gybe, but they are not the folks I meet. And they are surely not the people that BB is referring to.
And they are not my friends either, so while looking down your nose at those of us who you feel are beneath you, you are supplying me with an opinion and arrogantly showing how dumb we are to think of it.
Oh wait. You thought of it.

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